One of the most important aspects of living a healthy lifestyle is the ever popular pastime of sleeping—both in terms of the quantity of sleep undertaken and the quality of sleep attained! If you are currently trying to achieve better health and would like some help shoring up your sleep patterns, then perhaps one of the three fitness gadgets (with sleep monitoring and pertinent data feedback) that I consider in today’s blog may help you to do so! Simply click through and read on if you’d like to experience both better all-around sleep and better overall health. You’ll be healthy you did! 
Information is knowledge, and knowledge is power! Wonderful it is, then, that today there exists an abundance of technology with the sole objective of delivering information straight to our fingertips that can provide the knowledge to unlock unlimited opportunities for achieving a healthier lifestyle!
The first device we’ll look at today is the iHealth Edge Activity & Sleep Tracker – Black / Grey (shown above). This device not only tracks your total hours of sleep, but it also offers feedback on the efficiency of that sleep. Such information may ultimately lead you to make better sleep choices and acquire more effective sleep habits—habits that will improve both your overall quality of sleep and potentially even allow you to sleep less total hours while achieving increased overall rest! When it comes to something as seemingly simple, yet truly complex, as sleep, there are numerous factors that can influence its quality, from the timing of when you go to bed to the firmness or softness of the bed that you sleep in. With so many factors coming into play, it’s more important than ever that you arm yourself with every tidbit of information possible to help convert every single minute sleep you get into absolute top quality sleep!
Another major consideration in choosing a good fitness / sleep / activity tracker is the question of what other useful things it can do. The iHealth Monitor above does track a number of your other activities, such as steps taken, calories burned, and total distance traveled. However, if you want a product that is solely dedicated to tracking your sleep, then you must consider the Misfit Beddit Sleep Monitor – In White. This device is installed directly on your mattress and tracks pretty much everything to do with the state of your body during sleep: sleep quality, heart rate, movements–even snoring, which can be a possible indicator of Sleep Apnea. The feedback provided is fed to your smart device via Bluetooth and allows you to analyse and interpret the raw data and obtain meaningful information from it. The feedback obtained suggests pertinent advice that you can easily put into action.
Finally we have the highly popular Fitbit Flex Wireless Activity & Sleep Wristband – In Slate. The Fitbit Charge is worn on your wrist all day and night to track your movements. These movements (or the lack thereof during sleep) translate into data. This device can tell you how many hours you’ve slept (as well as the quality of those hours) based on your body movements. If the Fitbit does not register movement for more than one hour, it assumes you’re asleep and starts tracking your sleep quality. You don’t have to worry about starting the sleep function yourself—the Fitbit will do that for you. It will also track each flip, turn, and bathroom break you take, and in the morning it will inform you of how well you have slept. The results may be surprising for some, as sleep disorders are often not evident to us when we’re awake, yet your sleep quality may well be suffering. For those who really want detailed results, the Fitbit Charge even has a “sensitive sleep” mode, which tracks every possible movement. The normal sleep setting is what most people use because sometimes too much data is just that… too much! Finally, there’s a great silent alarm feature that will vibrate to rouse you, which may be more pleasant than the typical startling squak of truck backing up!
Additionally, the Fitbit Charge tracks your activities throughout the day (steps taken, calories burned, distance travelled, etc), has a watch-like display for your personal activity stats, and can be paired to your smart device. The Fitbit also shows notifications for incoming cellphone calls, & it has a pretty fantastic battery life as well (averaging 7-10 days between charges). Not a bad little fitness monitor!
If any of these devices particularly appeal to you, please share your thoughts in the reply box below! And, if you already own one of these devices (or possibly a different one that you really like a lot), please let us know which model it is and why you like it so much!
